Since joining Astros, Bourn has been center of attention

Center of attentionSince joining the Astros, all OF Michael Bourn has done is shown he's one of the game's best

ZACHARY LEVINE, HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Published 6:30 am, Friday, March 11, 2011

KISSIMMEE, Fla. -Strange as it might sound for one of the best defensive players in the game, the best thing that might have happened to Michael Bourn's career on a baseball field was when he realized he couldn't cut it defensively.

Bourn was playing shortstop at the time. Of course he was. He was an elite player in little league, and that's what elite players in little league do. But specialization came early for Bourn, who was moved from shortstop to begin his high school career. Well before winning Gold Gloves as an outfielder in 2009 and 2010.

"I just didn't have the kind of mechanics to be able to do it," Bourn said. "I had no mechanics to play the infield, and my coach told me it would be better to move to the outfield."

There were no fights, no worries about draft stock leaving the premium defensive position on a diamond for simply a premium defensive position.

"I kind of did it myself; I just learned it on the go," Bourn, 28, said of his four years playing at Aldine's Nimitz High School. "I kept taking fly balls in the outfield, and when I got to college (University of Houston), I continued to learn."

Seeing is believing

General manager Ed Wade isn't a big believer in defensive metrics, considered by many to be the murky final frontier of baseball statistics.

"I'm not a complete stat-averse person, but I still believe in boots on the ground and beauty is in the eye of the beholder and actually seeing guys play," Wade said. "Sometimes statistics can present false impressions."

Most of those come from the statistics that have been around forever — putouts, assists and errors - but they tell a limited story. In particular, judging a fielder on errors alone does little to nothing to account for balls the player never got to, ones that others might have reached.

Then there are the modern creations such as ultimate zone rating (UZR), which attempts to do something so basic in a manner so complicated. The short story, UZR tries to quantify how many runs a player saves (or for negative-value fielders, allows) in comparison to the league average player. The long story - don't ask.

The statistical work is solid but hard to apply with much muster over short periods of time and requires batted ball location data, meaning it cannot be retrofitted to compare Bourn to Cesar Cedeno or Willie Mays like one could compare Albert Pujols to Lou Gehrig with time-adjusted offensive metrics.

Bourn's last two seasons can be summed up by his two Gold Gloves. Or one can look at his total of 28 runs saved, according to Fangraphs.com, by far the most among National League center fielders and second only to Seattle's Franklin Gutierrez in the majors.

"To have a guy like Michael out there, he makes so many outfields look small," Wade said. "You just have to wait to see someone go out there who isn't as good as he is, and I think you have a greater appreciation for what he does. Forget about Carlos (Lee's) range and any of that kind of stuff, just how he takes the geography of center field and shrinks it down.

"He takes China and shrinks it to Luxembourg."

He wasn't always asked to patrol China, which is particularly "Chinese" at Minute Maid Park with its not-so-great wall 436 feet away in the center-field portion of the ballpark.

Even after playing extensive center field in college, he was asked to switch off between that and right in the minors. The Phillies had other prospects named Javon Moran, who never made the majors, and Chris Roberson, who made it briefly, and they needed everyone to get some center-field time.

No looking back

And when Bourn first made it to the majors it was as a utility man. Playing 17 games in 2006, he never played center - a position occupied by Aaron Rowand - in the Phillies organization, and in 2007, he played just 12 of his 105 games there.

He was waiting his turn. When he was traded to the Astros in the Brad Lidge deal it was the clear understanding that he would be the center fielder. In 436 games with the Astros, he's played nothing but.

"I don't think he's got a prototypical right fielder's arm; he throws well, but he doesn't throw that well to profile there," Wade said. "And frankly if you're breaking down the right-field position in total, you're looking for power run production out of the position. To me, Michael's skill set plays perfectly if you're defining the position as speed, defense and the ability to get on base."

And now, half of his young life removed from his first real trip to the pasture, it's worked out just fine.

"I'm thankful for that," Bourn said. "You always wonder about it when you move from another position, but when I moved from shortstop to center, I didn't really think about it too much. They didn't have to keep begging me to do it. I just moved and that was it."